TRADE
S Korea, Australia ink pact
South Korea and Australia signed a free-trade deal yesterday which is to scrap almost all tariffs within a decade while immediately lifting levies on some key exports, including South Korean cars and Australian wine. The deal is to see almost all tariffs on goods traded between the two countries scrapped within 10 years of the pact taking effect. Canberra is to immediately abolish 5 percent tariffs on most South Korean-made cars, as well as televisions, refrigerators and machinery. Seoul is to immediately lift tariffs on nearly half of agricultural imports from Australia, including wine and coconut oil, as well as about a fifth of fish imports. It is hoped that the deal will be ratified by the end of the year, the South Korean trade ministry said.
JAPAN
Bank upbeat on economy
The Bank of Japan yesterday painted an upbeat picture of the world’s No. 3 economy and delayed action on its monetary easing program as it assesses the impact of a controversial rise in sales tax. Policymakers decided to hold fire on the multibillion-dollar asset-purchase scheme introduced in April last year as part of a drive by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to drag the country out of years of deflation and slumbering growth.
ECONOMY
Japan posts surplus
Japan posted its first current account surplus in five months in February, helped by a narrower trade deficit and higher returns on investment abroad, Japanese government data showed yesterday. Japan logged a surplus of ￥612.7 billion (US$5.9 billion) in February, down 5.7 percent from the surplus the year before, but a reversal of a deficit of ￥1.59 trillion in January. The monthly trade deficit shrank by 1.4 percent on-year to ￥533.4 billion as exports grew faster than imports. Exports rose 15.7 percent to ￥5.94 trillion, while imports went up 14.1 percent to ￥6.47 trillion.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GSK probes Iraq claims
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said on Monday it has launched an investigation into allegations it bribed doctors in Iraq, as the pharmaceuticals giant remains embroiled in a major corruption scandal in China. The company said it is probing allegations of “improper conduct in our Iraq business” after reports that it hired 16 doctors and pharmacists in Iraq as paid sales representatives at a time they continued working for the government. “In total, we employ fewer than 60 people in Iraq in our pharmaceuticals operation and these allegations relate to a small number of individuals in the country,” it said in a statement, adding: “We have zero tolerance for unethical or illegal behavior.”
AUTOMAKERS
Ford recalls two models
Ford Motor Co issued two vehicle recalls on Monday, one to fix a corrosion risk that could affect steering and another to replace seat frames that do not meet safety standards. Ford said it was recalling about 385,7500 Ford Escape sport-utility vehicles in the model years 2001 to 2004 to address a potential subframe corrosion issue that could cause the lower control arm to separate, resulting in reduced steering control and an increased crash risk. The No. 2 US automaker said it was aware of one crash that may be related to the issue, but knew of no injuries.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
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